Make This Easy For Me
by cosmoroc5
Summary: Shane has always been second best compared to Rick. He's had many things taken from him, been out matched constantly. When he finally loses the one thing he felt he could never part with to his 'brother', he is finally left empty. So empty he can't be angry any longer. Just empty.


"Make this easy for me, Daryl. Tell me you never loved me. Tell me when you looked me in the eye you never felt anything. Nothing at all. Tell me that even when I held you close and ran my hands over your back, even when I was buried inside of you, even when I risked my life to save you, that you never loved me. Even if part of it is a lie. Tell me. Make this easier for both of us. Make it easier for me. Tell me whenever I held you at night it never made you feel safe, that it made your skin crawl and every time I kissed you it made you sick. That every smile and laugh was fake and pained and that our jokes never meant anything. That I never meant anything. That every gentle touch and loving phrase and action that passed between us was a lie. Words fabricated by petty emotions and a need to be touched. That all I was, was a warm body for your bed.

Make this easy for me.", Shane muttered into the night, breath unfurling in the chilled air in a puff of vapor before disappearing like the light in his eyes had.

They didn't twinkle anymore. The mischief and child like warmth was gone. They were empty now. Cold like the snow that collected on his shoulders. Lifeless and his posture was tense, but feeble, as if his next breath would break him and for a moment both Rick and Daryl were stunned to silence. Never before had they seen this bullheaded man so vulnerable. He looked ready to crumble before them into a heap. Like he was holding himself up with sheer will. Rick nearly flinched at the smell of whiskey on his ex-partners breath, but he knew Shane wasn't drunk. Not at all. He was completely sober and serious and a shell of himself, the words echoing through him like they had no real substance.

"Make this easy for me.", Shane murmured again, weaker this time, hushed and pleading, a tone neither of the other men had ever heard and guilt tore it's way through both. Shane's blank gaze shifted from Daryl to Rick slowly and a frown etched it's way into his features. "You…You were…My brother. My family, man...Why did…Why did you have to take everything from me, again? Are you..Are you trying to prove something. First the family, then Lori, then…Then Carl, now..Now him…And-….Guess my dad was right, huh? Never was shit compared to you..", he continued, hushed and dazed and he lifted the whiskey bottle back to his lips swigging a few gulps down before lowering it and sucking in a breath at the burn.

Rick tried to swallow around the dryness of his throat, finding himself unable to form a reply. Shane didn't let him anyway, straightening and shifting about the porch like he was weighted down by the world and fighting to keep himself up. "Always had the perfect family. Then married the prettiest dame in school. Head of the baseball team. Homecoming king. Sheriff's son. Mother was the best cook in town and the sweetest ole' gal. Best in the academy. Had a wonderful kid and then another. Now, you've got the most amazing man I've ever met in my life. Shit, brother. Always showin' me up. Always better. Might as well of left me with my dad. Man woulda killed me eventually. Just know it. That man hated me. Hated me the moment I first started screamin'. Always told me you were too good to me. Should of listened.", he spoke, more towards the sky then the two forms looming in the doorway.

Rick felt a cold dread wash over him, an icy sensation in his bones that had nothing to do with the falling snow.

"I always knew, though. Deep down..I knew you'd…You'd get tired of me. You too, Daryl. Just knew it. Even Ma knew I was a good for nothing piece of shit. Guess I just thought….Nothing…Didn't think nothing…Doesn't matter now. Doesn't matter.", he trailed off, face tilting up to gaze at the moon, though his shoulders shook in a way that was less fighting off cold and more fighting off tears. He took his other hand out of his pocket and spun the little box there around in his fingers for a moment.

He looked at it for a long time before placing it gently on the railing next to him, fingers brushing over it as if it were made of glass. "Make this easy for me..", he whispered into the air, voice shaking as tears began visibly dropping to make a soft 'plop' against the wood of the porch. Daryl shook with the realization of what the object was and the Rick went stiff at the sound of clinking metal and watched as the chain was lowered to rest over the box. "Make this easy."

The couple sat there for a long time, watching Shane drink from his bottle and amble through the snow and down the street aimlessly as the number 22 glinted in the moonlight at them, a sight that left dread in their guts.

Shane didn't show up for work the next day.


End file.
